The Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly now initiated its own propaganda campaign. It printed and distributed hundreds of thousands of newspapers and pamphlets107 to explain why the Assembly was not anti-Soviet and why it alone had the right to give the country a constitution. It staged demonstrations in the capital and the provincial cities calling for “All Power to the Constituent Assembly.” It sent agitators to barracks and factories to obtain the signatures of soldiers and workers, including those who had voted for the Bolsheviks, on appeals calling for upholding the Assembly. The SRs and Mensheviks who organized these activities along with trade unions and striking civil servants evidently hoped that evidence of massive support would inhibit the Bolsheviks from using force against the Assembly.
A few socialists thought this was not enough: they came from the SR underground, and felt that only the methods used against tsarism—terror and street violence—would restore democracy. Their leader was Fedor Mikhailovich Onipko, an SR delegate from Stavropol and a member of the Military Commission of the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly. Assisted by experienced conspirators, Onipko penetrated Smolnyi, planting there four operatives in the guise of officials and chauffeurs. Tracking Lenin’s movements and discovering that he slipped out of Smolnyi frequently to visit his sister, they placed in her house an agent posing as a janitor. Onipko wanted to kill Lenin and then Trotsky. The action was planned for Christmas day. But the SR Central Committee, which he asked for approval, absolutely refused to condone such action: if the SRs murdered Lenin and Trotsky, he was told they would be lynched by workers and only the enemies of the Revolution would benefit. Onipko was ordered to dissolve his terrorist group immediately.108 He obeyed, but some conspirators (among them Nekrasov, Kerensky’s closest associate) not connected with the SR Party carried out a clumsy attempt on Lenin’s life on January 1. They inflicted a slight wound on the Swiss radical Fritz Platten, who was riding with Lenin.109 After this incident, whenever he ventured out of Smolnyi, Lenin carried a revolver.
78. F. M. Onipko.
Onipko next sought to organize armed resistance against the anticipated Bolshevik assault on the Constituent Assembly. His plan, worked out with the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly, called for a massive armed demonstration in front of Taurida on January 5 to intimidate pro-Bolshevik troops and ensure that the Assembly would not be dispersed. He managed to secure impressive backing. At the Preobrazhenskii, Semenovskii, and Izmailovskii Guard Regiments some 10,000 men volunteered to march, arms in hand, and fight if fired upon. Possibly as many as 2,000 workers, mainly from the Obukhov plant and the State Printing Office, agreed to join.
Before setting its plans in motion, the Military Commission went back to the Central Committee of the SR Party for authorization. The Central Committee again refused. It justified its negative stand with vague explanations, all, in the ultimate analysis, grounded in fear. No one had defended the Provisional Government, it argued. Bolshevism was a disease of the masses which required time to overcome. This was no time for risky “adventures.”110
The Central Committee reconfirmed its intention to hold on January 5 a peaceful demonstration: the troops would be welcome but they had to come without arms. The committee counted on the Bolsheviks not daring to open fire on the demonstrators out of fear of provoking another Bloody Sunday. When, however, Onipko and his aides returned to the barracks with the news and asked the soldiers to come unarmed, they met with derision:
“Are you making fun of us, comrades?” they responded in disbelief. “You are asking us to a demonstration but tell us to come without weapons. And the Bolsheviks? Are they little children? They will for sure fire at unarmed people. And we: are we supposed to open our mouths and give them our heads for targets, or will you order us to run, like rabbits?”111
The soldiers refused to confront Bolshevik rifles and machine guns with bare hands and decided to sit out January 5 in their barracks.
The Bolsheviks, who got wind of these activities, took no chances and prepared for the decisive day as they would for battle. Lenin took personal command.
The first task was to win over or at least neutralize the military garrison. Bolshevik agitators sent to the barracks did not dare attack directly the Constituent Assembly because of its popularity; instead they argued that “counterrevolutionaries” were trying to exploit the Assembly to liquidate the soviets. With this argument they persuaded the Finnish Infantry Regiment to pass a resolution rejecting the slogan “All Power to the Constituent Assembly” and agreeing to support the Assembly only if it cooperated closely with the soviets. The Volhynian and Lithuanian regiments passed similar resolutions.112 This was the extent of Bolshevik success. It appears that no military unit of any size would condemn the Constituent Assembly as “counterrevolutionary.” The Bolsheviks, therefore, had to rely on hastily organized units of Red Guards and sailors. But Lenin did not trust Russians and gave instructions for the Latvians to be brought in: “the muzhik may waver if anything happens,” he said.113 This marked still greater involvement of the Latvian Riflemen in the Revolution on the side of the Bolsheviks.
On January 4, Lenin appointed N. I. Podvoiskii, the ex-chairman of the Bolshevik Military Organization, which had carried out the October coup in Petrograd, to constitute an Extraordinary Military Staff.114 Podvoiskii once again placed Petrograd under martial law and forbade public assemblies. Proclamations to this effect were posted throughout the city. Uritskii announced in Pravda on January 5 that gatherings in the vicinity of Taurida Palace would be dispersed by force if necessary.
The Bolsheviks also sent agitators to the industrial establishments. Here they ran into hostility and incomprehension. In the largest factories—Putilov, Obukhov, Baltic, the Nevskii shipyard, and Lessner—workers had signed petitions of the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly and could not understand why the Bolsheviks, with which many of them sympathized, had now turned against the Assembly.*